FAQs

What are your 2014 goals? What are your ten year goals?

In 2014 we will build critical mass in the network, expand our experimental worship communities into two more cities, develop alliances with reform groups across the denominations, support a drive for a significant policy change in these denominations, and increase the number of church thinkers and futurists involved in the conversation (including you). Our ten year goal is to build a worldwide movement that champions change in the church.

What is the difference between reform and reformation?

Reform addresses the changes that need to be made now, e.g. pioneering justice as a model for society in the church. Reformation addresses watershed change that reaches into every nook and cranny of the church to transform its theological posture and institutional life, e.g. the establishment of the medieval church Christendom through the Gregorian Reformation.

What is a movement? (Or what do you mean when you say you’re a movement?)

We’ve got enough religious institutions. We’re a movement because we’re a living, vibrant network of Christians working together for reform across the whole church, not just within the traditional boundaries of denominations, faith communities, and nations. At the Threshold is a vehicle; it is a vehicle that we can get in together and use to drive into the unpredictable but promised future to which God is calling us.

What are you doing offline?

We’re passionate about using digital media to build a website forum for theological reflection, but we’re also supporting experimental worship communities and building alliances with progressive advocates inside and outside the church.

Why now?

Across the globe technology is disrupting institutions. Digital developments place power in the hands of the masses, and they are transforming politics, business, and education. Church reformers have an unprecedented opportunity to tap the emerging power of networks to create a platform to build and share knowledge, weave relationships, access new perspectives, and spread innovation from the bottom up.

Why are you doing this?

It’s the end of the church as we know it…And that’s a good thing. We want to re-imagine what the church can be in ways that re-capture the imagination of the world. We want to throw ourselves into living out the love and justice of God—inside and outside the church. We want to renew our vision for justice and a more faithful future.

What makes you different from other progressive religious organizations/sites?

We want all of those organizations and reformers to come together, to move in concert for broad reform across all parts of the church. We’re not in competition with them. We want to support anyone working for change and amplify their voice. We should be working together – learning from one another’s experiences and relying on one another’s support – on the broadest of fronts across the whole church everywhere.